Television is My Patriotism

No, really, I've never been patriotic except on rare occasions, and on Wednesday nights 1999 - 2006. So anyway, in search of a new hit, I started watching the John Adams HBO miniseries tonight. I meant to watch it via torrent live, but never got around to it despite really wanting to... and well, they've been advertising it like crazy mad on MSNBC.

Naturally since it has Paul Giamatti AND Laura Linney (all hail Laura Linney), it is basically the most amazing thing ever. I'm only at the end of the first disc and it's the greatest film about the Founding Fathers.

Some minor quibbles: while there are some scenes that are slashy as all hell between Adams and Jefferson, is it just me or is this some bizarro world Autistic Thomas Jefferson in this movie?

Abigail Adams rocks socks. Going in to any movie about the Adamses, you kind of have to gird yourself for the Abigail portions of the film, because either she'll be too shrill with the director deciding her resentment at her husband's absence is the key note, or she'll be ridiculously feminist beyond her time. Laura Linney's understated performance and a very well-rounded script keeps this from actually happening. (So far, anyway.)

What I like about Giamatti as Adams (and the script) is that if you know the plot, you can see where the paranoid obsession of laws and an orderly society has already well-established itself in his character. (He's the Founder what went a bit crazy, after all.)

I think the movie expects that you know the general course of events anyway; there will be a scene where you abruptly see the aftermath of Bunker Hill and the movie just expects that you knew it was coming rather than trying to fill in the importance of the battle. I like it, it's a smart move.

Today's Twitters

• 17:02 Mmm, polls! #
• 17:25 John McCain looks sadder and sadder the longer this election goes on. #
• 17:36 sad but true: the way Keith says "Yesss!" at the end of that bump still makes me laaaaaugh. #
• 18:00 Yay Rachel time. #
• 18:07 @sarking You bet it was. #
• 18:12 googly faced emoticon! #
• 18:12 mmm, dinner. #
• 18:23 "That's the dramatic sound of static." #

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Okay, let's play American History AP:

We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when He shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, "may the Lord make it like that of New England." For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.

--John Winthrop, 1630.

And that's about all I have to say tonight. Except for one thng. The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the "shining city upon a hill." The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free.

--Ronald Reagan, 1989.

FUCK YOU PALIN. EVEN REAGAN SOURCED SHIT. HE WOULD BE SO SAD.

(no subject)

LIVEJOURNAL NEVER LEAVE ME EVER AGAIN. *hugs her crazy Russian overlord*

Anyway: have now finished episode three and four of John Adams. I was going to post longish thoughts about them, except I've forgotten most of it. Episode Three was a bit of a chore to sit through because it was all about how Adams was a big old tool.

Meanwhile, Episode Four was AMAZINGLY GREAT. I did not know that John Adams/Thomas Jefferson was also an OT3 with Abigale Adams! Er, and the bit where George Washington gets sworn in basically made me want to be there. (Plus, apparently Americans had learned hygiene.)